Kuwaitis Raise Hopes for Democratic Reform

Article excerpt

THE return home on March 4 of Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Saad
al-Abdullah al-Sabah, the first member of the ruling family to end a
seven-month exile in Saudi Arabia, marks the beginning of what
promises to be a complex political process.

Prince Saad, the emir's brother, is due to oversee a three-month
period of martial law intended to stabilize Kuwait in the wake of
occupation by Iraqi troops, before elections to a national assembly
are held, officials have explained. His first task will be to speed
up collection of thousands of weapons still in private hands and
mountains of unguarded ammunition in Iraqi bunkers all over Kuwait
City. Fears that these arms could be used to create political chaos
are widespread.

"We are very weak now, and we are afraid of small groups that
could make Kuwait like Lebanon," says Muhammad al-Muttawa, a
resistance worker.

Many Kuwaitis suspect that the Iraqi forces left behind agents
who will seek to sow confusion. A prominent member of the former
national assembly, Hamad al-Johan, was gravely shot by a gunman who
shouted that he was being punished for opposing the ruling family.
Rumors that the ruling al-Sabah family have hired assassins to kill
opposition figures were quick to fly.

The government will hold elections to the national assembly that
it suspended in 1986 "as soon as this country is under normal life,"
Minister for Cabinet Affairs Abd al-Rahman Abdullah al-Awadi
announced March 3. This pledge echoed an agreement reached at a
conference of Kuwaiti government and opposition figures reached at
Taif, Saudi Arabia, last October, and many Kuwaitis appear to
believe in the ruling family's sincerity.

"I trust in my government....I do not believe the government will
break its promise," says Saleh al-Fadala, vice president of the last
national assembly.

Some Kuwaitis are confident that the elections will be held
because of pressure from the countries that fought to free Kuwait
from Iraqi occupation. "The United States, Britain, and France, they
love democracy," suggests Moaz Khaled, a Kuwaiti who says he hopes
for political reform. "They will oblige our rulers to be more
open."

Others point to Kuwaitis' experience under occupation as
encouraging demands for greater freedom. Neighborhood committees
"took the role of the government by supporting people in various
social ways, providing assistance the government used to offer," Mr.
Fadala points out.

Complications are expected to arise, however, not least between
Kuwaitis who remained in the country to resist the occupation and
those who spent the last seven months in the relative comfort of
exile around the Arab world. Although those who stayed insist in
public that they understand why some of their compatriots did not,
in private they are more scathing, according to foreigners familiar
with their mood. …